Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, has announced his resignation as the company’s CEO. The move comes weeks after the company changed its name to Xe in an attempt to rebrand the firm. Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, assesses the latest developments. [includes rush transcript]

Five Blackwater security guards were charged on Monday for their role in the 2007 Nisoor Square massacre in Baghdad that left seventeen Iraqis dead and more than twenty wounded. The federal prosecutors accused the Blackwater guards of opening machine gun fire on innocent Iraqis and launching a grenade into a girls’ school. We speak with Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army....

Top Justice Department prosecutors are reportedly reviewing a draft indictment against six Blackwater security guards who opened fire in a crowded Baghdad square more than a year ago killing seventeen Iraqi civilians. The indictments would mark the first time armed private contractors from the United States face justice. We speak to Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post correspondent Steve Fainaru about his new book Big Boy Rules:...

In an exclusive interview with Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill, Congressman Henry Waxman, chair of the powerful House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, calls on Sen. Barack Obama to cancel the private military firm Blackwater’s Iraq contract if Obama is elected president. Serious questions remain about what Obama will do with this massive private shadow army in Iraq. [includes rush transcript]

The private military firm Blackwater has gone from being a relatively unknown contractor working in Iraq to a household name and the subject of multiple investigations, lawsuits and congressional inquiries. In the meantime, the company continues to reap millions of dollars in profits and was recently awarded a new contract from the State Department. Last year, Democracy Now! correspondent and Nation Fellow, Jeremy Scahill, published his book ...

John Cusack joins us to talk about War, Inc., his new film taking on issues few in Hollywood today would dare to: war profiteering, mercenaries, political corruption and embedded journalism. A political satire, the film stars Cusack as Brand Hauser, a hit-man for hire who is deployed to the fictional country of Turaqistan to kill a Middle Eastern oil baron. Hauser’s employer is Tamerlane, a secretive for-profit military corporation...

Just two months after local opposition thwarted its effort to build a massive outdoor training facility near San Diego, the private military company Blackwater USA is being accused of secretly trying to build a new one just blocks from the US-Mexico border. Blackwater received approval for the 61,000 square-foot indoor facility in Otay Mesa, California, by filing for permits using the names of two subsidiaries. [includes rush transcript]

The State Department has announced it is extending the private military firm Blackwater’s contract in Baghdad for another year. The news comes despite an ongoing FBI investigation into the September 16th shooting in Baghdad where Blackwater guards were accused of killing seventeen Iraqi civilians. An earlier investigation by the Pentagon found that all seventeen Iraqis were killed as a result of unprovoked and unjustified fire by...

The Center for Constitutional Rights is filing another lawsuit today against the private military firm Blackwater — this time for a shooting in Baghdad on September 9th that left five people dead and ten injured. The lawsuit is being filed on behalf of the family members of one those killed in the shooting. We speak with attorney Susan Burke. [includes rush transcript]

Democracy Now! broadcasts, for the first time on television, graphic new details about Blackwater’s Sept. 16th shooting in Nisoor Square in Baghdad. We hear from three Iraqis who were caught up in the attack: a traffic policeman who witnessed the shootings up close and tried to help the victims, a computer technician on his way to buy a gift who was shot in the arm, and a doctor whose wife and son were shot and burned to death in the...

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